


Pollution

by Green_Sphynx



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe: Merfolk, M/M, MerMay, Mick is a criminal but that's hardly worth mentioning is it, humans are disgusting, merBarry, merBarry says so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 19:29:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18976900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green_Sphynx/pseuds/Green_Sphynx
Summary: Barry couldn't swim away from any dying creature if he could save them, even if it was one of those disgusting humans. Turns out he actually really likes what he sees when he's finally face to face with one.





	Pollution

Humans were honestly _so_ disgusting.

Merfolk didn't usually swim close to human settlements for many reasons, and the amount of trash they would throw into the water was definitely one of them. Anywhere near the coast where the humans favoured beaches, places where humans like to fish, but most of all the rivers. The rivers were just vile.

The only reason Barry was swimming up through a river now was because he had a specific purpose. Every city he came through on the way meant Barry stayed as deep underwater as he could, squinting in the filthy water and trying not to gag every time he was surprised by a piece of garbage in his path, difficult to see until you were right in front of it through the thick pollution.

Barry hated every last second of this.

He'd come across big plastic sheets, bottles and other odd shapes, sometimes colourful but often just dirty and worn from bad resistance against the river's nature. He'd come across large, unnatural blocks of stone and strange metal constructs that might be used for the buildings humans created on the land. He'd found the remains and corpses of many animals and plants in various states of decay, death thickly concentrated near these settlements.

And then he was surprised by the humans throwing their crap into the river right over his head from a boat, and honestly these people wouldn't know respect if it hit them in the face.

Barry quickly curved around the block of stone plunging down into the depths, flaring his nostrils before quickly covering them up with a hand, afraid of whatever dirt was going to follow.

The real surprise came when he saw the 'dirt' following the stone was still moving.

Struggling, in fact.

_There was a human chained to the block of stone they just dumped into the river._

If Barry thought humans were disgusting before, now he found them downright offensive.

He didn't hesitate, sliding down and around the stone to see how the chain was fastened while the human struggled against the water. The chains seemed to be plugged straight into the stone, so Barry smoothed his hands over it, noting how porous the stone was, how… _artificial_. Typical humans, once again.

He broke the stone in half with one forceful twist of both hands, freeing the metal plug from the stone and the human with it.

Still, the human couldn't swim all chained up, so Barry grabbed the chains on the human's wrist and swam off, speeding away from the spot as fast as he could so he could bring the human to the surface somewhere the people trying to drown him wouldn't see.

Barry swam maybe a minute, knowing time was short, but even with the heavy weight of the human he got pretty far. He was the fastest swimmer of their settlement, the main reason they picked him to send up river in the first place, and no amount of human bulk and weight could stop him from being _fast_. When he surfaced it was beyond the outskirts of the human settlement and out of view.

The human coughed and spluttered when Barry dragged him high enough to pull his head out of the water, and picked right back up with his struggling, to Barry's chagrin. He dragged the man to the shore and threw him on the rickety wooden pier he found, hosting only a small rowing boat that looked ready to join the corpses down below.

Even on land the human kept struggling, so Barry heaved himself onto the little pier, curling his long red tail around the human's chest and squeezed until he started to vomit up the water.

Barry's nostrils flared in disgust, but at least his sense of smell was nearly non-existent out of the water.

And _that_ was what really made him think about what he was doing. Saving a human like this… it was stupid. It made no sense, because he hated these creatures, and it was stupid because he risked them coming after him after this. Barry had no idea why he did it.

Well… deep down he knew. He couldn't swim away from any dying creature if he could save them, after all. _Not even an odd hairless human._

He should leave the human be and get back to his quest up river, but instead he remained with his tail loosely wrapped around the human's chest, poking at the metal chains.

"Are you going to be alright now?"

The human only stopped coughing to give him a wide-eyed look that Barry couldn't read.

"Need me to break the chains as well?" he offered, tiredly.

"What the fuck are _you_?"

Barry felt himself trill indignantly, and for a moment he considered just leaving the human after all.

"I am the man who saved you, against better judgement. You filthy humans pollute more than enough of the water without drowning each other in it as well!"

The human blinked, like he was registering what was going on only now. "You're… a mermaid."

Well that… was not what Barry had expected. He snorted a laugh, the feeling a bit painful here in the air, but he couldn't help himself. "Do I look like a maid to you? Is it my youth? Do all young men look like virginal ladies to humans?"

The human struggled to sit up and Barry let him, unwrapping his tail so that he was only splayed over the human's lap anymore, using those thick thighs to pillow his hip and protect it from digging into the wood of the little pier. The human looked down at where Barry remained over him with another look Barry couldn't read, before meeting Barry's eyes.

And Barry had to admit… human eyes were pretty. Such small irises, framed with a lot of white… it was enchanting, really. It made it harder to make out the colour of the human's iris, but it made them pop all the same.

Barry didn't realise he was leaning in to look at those alien eyes until he saw his own fingertips sliding over the human's soft skin, right next to the left eye. He startled back immediately, looking away to pretend he wasn't blushing.

"You saved me," the human belatedly stated.

"I said that, yes," Barry muttered, squirming now. "I should go. I have things to do, and I can't wait until I can return to the clean waters of the ocean. You're welcome, by the way."

And just as he rolled himself so he could let himself slip into the water, the human's hand found his wrist to grab onto. The grip was feeble, at best, and the human's own wrists were still stuck in the chains, so Barry could have left without a problem… but something made him wait.

"I'm Mick." The human introduced himself, unprompted.

Barry glanced back up, and those wide eyes with all the white were so pretty, so intriguing.

So he rolled back to face the human, slipping his fingers between the chains to break the links with a flick of his wrist.

"I'm Barry."

The human's hands were on his waist to pull him in closer the moment he managed to wriggle free from the broken chains, and Barry gasped his surprise with painfully dry air, but he allowed it.

Because Mick's lips were nice and wet, and they didn't taste of pollution at all.


End file.
